[Now updated with a load of new details on the election conspiracy, how it worked, and who the candidates were that allegedly benefited from it, following today's guilty plea entered in court. See bottom of article for that new information.]

A Republican election official, one of six allegedly bi-partisan [ed note: see update below for more on that] Clay County, KY, Board of Elections officials arrested last March and charged with a long-term conspiracy to rig elections, buy votes, and manipulate vote-selections on electronic voting machines without the knowledge of voters, has asked to change his plea from not guilty to guilty, according to local news reports...

The attorney for Paul E. Bishop filed a motion Thursday seeking a hearing for him to plead guilty to one count of racketeering.

That charge alleges that members of the conspiracy used the county Board of Elections as a vehicle to corrupt voting between 2002 and 2007 so they could hold on to power and enrich themselves and others.

According to the indictment [PDF], Bishop was a Republican election judge at precincts in 2002 and 2004, and hosted meetings at his house where candidates pooled money to be used for buying votes. The latest report also notes that Bishop, and some of the other conspirators, even employed Rush Limbaugh's illicit drug of choice, OxyContin, as part of their scheme...

Bishop's re-arraignment is thought likely to be an indication that he has decided to cooperate with federal prosecutors. That could be bad news for the other 7 charged in the scheme, 6 of whom were Board of Elections officials including a Circuit Court Judge, the County Clerk, a School Superintendent, and the county's Democratic election commissioner.

As we noted when we first reported on this matter in March, the arrests came at a moment when the denialist Baghdad Bobs of the electronic voting industry, and their enablers, facilitators, and apologists in the election official world had been clinging to their last, yet-to-be-fully-destroyed argument in favor of the use of oft-failed, easily-hacked, fully-untransparent electronic voting systems. The argument in short: though it's now recognized that all e-voting systems on the market are incredibly easy to hack in order to flip elections, nobody has actually yet been caught doing so.

The Clay County arrests, while they involved a fairly low-tech, and incredibly simple, manipulation of actual votes on ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines at the polling place after voters had left the booth --- as opposed to direct manipulation of a central vote tabulator machine, as computer scientists, security experts, and election integrity experts had most feared --- quickly pulled the rug out from under one of the "election industry" dead-enders' last arguments for the continued use of failed, un-democratic, vote-casting and counting equipment which uses private, untested, proprietary, "trade secret" software to unverifiably count votes in secret in our public elections.

The fall of that last rationalization for the use of these systems comes on the heels of one of the previously-discredited rationalizations: we must trust our election officials, they'd never take advantage of their positions as insiders, with unfettered access to e-voting systems, in order manipulate elections. (The arrest of Monterey County, CA, 13-year Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo, among others, helped shred that myth several years ago.)

An interesting new bit of information in the Lexington Herald-Leader's coverage of Bishop's new plea notes that the conspirators are alleged to have used OxyContin --- also known as "Hillbilly Heroin," the same illegal narcotic which led to the arrest of rightwing drug-addict Rush Limbaugh in 2006 --- to buy votes in the earlier years of their scheme:

Bishop and [election officer William] Stivers also used OxyContin to buy votes at the direction of [School Superintendent Douglas] Adams in 2002, former Manchester assistant police Chief Todd Roberts told investigators, according to another court document.

A long-term federal narcotics trafficking sting in the County had previously snagged the local mayor and a number of other elected officials prior to the recent arrests in the alleged election-manipulation conspiracy.

In one (or two) additional related ironies, Limbaugh himself reportedly had problems voting on the touch-screen used by Palm Beach County, FL, in last year's primary election in the Sunshine State when his fully-unverifiable Sequoia Edge DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machine seemed to have frozen on him, leaving him unaware whether his vote had been counted twice, once, or at all.

LATE UPDATE: Reports are now coming in following today's guilty plea by Bishop, including this excellent coverage by the Herald-Leader's Bill Estep. Pardon for the long quotage below, but there were a lot of interesting details coming out of today's plea.

For example, while we've previously argued that it doesn't really matter whether this scam was meant to benefit Republicans or Democrats, and seemed as much about enriching the conspirators as anything else, details from Bishop's plea seem to point to Republican officials who benefited from it.

Noteworthy new details from Estep's coverage follows...

Public officials and candidates in Clay County pooled hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy votes in the 2002 primary election, and bought votes in 2004 for a slate that included a state representative, a former election officer has admitted.

His plea agreement included new allegations in an investigation that has already shaken the county's longtime power structure.

For instance, Bishop said that in 2004, Clay County school Superintendent Douglas C. Adams gave him $2,000 to bribe voters. Bishop said he paid around 100 voters about $20 each to vote for a slate of candidates that included state Rep. Tim Couch.

Couch, a Hyden Republican, had defeated Rep. Barbara White Colter in the 2002 GOP primary and was running for re-election in 2004.

Couch said Friday that he did not ask or tell anyone to buy votes for him and, if it happened, he had no knowledge of it.

But Couch said in an interview that people might have bought votes for him.

"That's a possibility that they included me on it," he said of the slate. "I know there was things that went on over there that I didn't want to be no part of."

Colter had been part of a group that a drug dealer was asked to buy votes for in May 2002, according to a court motion filed in an earlier phase of the investigation.

Colter told the Herald-Leader earlier that she heard in 2002 that for a certain price, candidates could join a slate for which votes would be bought, but said she refused.

Couch and Colter have not been charged in the case.
...
Bishop said people involved in the scheme pooled $150,000 to $250,000 at a meeting in his garage days before the 2002 primary election. The jailer running for re-election, Charles Marcum, came in with about $10,000 in a bread bag and tossed it on the table, Bishop said.

Bishop said others at the meeting included Adams, Thompson, Stivers, Jones and Roy Morgan, a well-known businessman who has been active in county politics.

Marcum and Morgan have not been charged, and neither could be reached for comment Friday.

A woman who answered the phone at Marcum's house Friday evening said, "That's ridiculous. No comment," when told of Bishop's allegation.

Adams, who called the 2002 meeting at Bishop's garage, instructed Bishop how to use some of the cash to buy votes for a slate of candidates that included Marcum and Thompson, who was running for county clerk in the Republican primary against incumbent Jennings B. White, according to the plea agreement.
...
Bishop, a disabled former school-bus driver, faces up to 20 years in prison. His sentence will probably be much lower than that under advisory guidelines, however.

Bishop's sentencing is scheduled for October 19th. The trial for the other 7 conspirators in the case is currently scheduled to begin in September.

As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here...

From the fine article:
"The racketeering charge against Bishop carries a top sentence of 20 years, but his sentence would probably be much less under advisory guidelines."

I doubt he will get as many years in jail as the legislation, measures, propositions, and politicians his crimes leveraged into power.

2004 being a presidential election. So how many of our kids in the military died because of the wars these elected people are responsible for?

How many senators have permitted the fraud by the banking and financial markets?

How many unconstitutional laws were put in place over this segment of time?

All while his tyrannical electronic tool boxs of domestic terrorism remains embedded through out most of our nation's polling places, just waiting for the next chance to steal YOUR VOTE. All conveniently ignored by corporate media.

Just because he goes to jail doesn't mean the tyrannical threat these boxes pose is magically lifted, someone else could eventually take his place.

By sentencing this MONSTER to 20 years or less doesn't remove the original roots of the threat. (allowing electronic vote tabulation devices in the first place)

Sentencing this monster to 20 years or less doesn't change the "power and enrichment of themselves and others enrichment"

Nobody will pick that pandora's box up and that's frankly a crock of shit.

What about the elected? Have any of them broken their oath of office because they know the elections are rigged? How many ignore letters and communications with the public since they have no way to be held accountable by being voted out of office? What about their appointees? Any more crime get in that way? How come now that we know the monster was corrupt (from his own admission of guilt), nullification, removal from office, undoing of measures, propositions and everything else that was passed as a result of this corruption and marked as official results, during the whole corruption time segment isn't being addressed? When will it ever be?

I am simply asking a question.

It's like saying, oh we have a spy in our government, and then arresting the spy, but not plugging the holes which allowed him in, or blocking the damage he did. Or even bothering to unplug his fucking computer from the top secret network, which just keeps sending out packet bursts of our secrets. Just letting it sit there and fester for 6 (or more?) years, potentially enabling other spies.

What impact was there on presidential primaries? Did it help eliminate candidates for the General election?

Without these thing being addressed nationally we will NEVER HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE.

Is this the father or a relative of Tim Couch, the Hyden, Kentucky football player? They're keeping another corruption case real quiet in Kentucky: multi-millionaire, Leonard Lawson and his road paving deals.

Well, the next weak and self-serving excuse by election officials will be - hey - it didn't happen HERE in our jurisdiction! Yeah, right, and we would know that because...? The current system is designed to create secretive methods of electronically counting and manipulating vote counts in a manner that cannot be detected without a full impartial outside forensic audit. And who would PAY for that? Certainly not the jurisdictions where the manipulations are going on.

Oh yes, there was Riverside County, CA. They paid $315,000 for an "operational review", specifically NOT an audit as confirmed by the firm conducting the review, Best, Best & Krieger (BB&K). To quote, "with respect to transparency of the ballot reconciliation process and other canvassing processes, the specific adequacy of the procedures cannot be determined without a forensic audit. The Audit Team (sic) did not conduct a forensic audit." - pg 30.

On page 6, the report stated, "The ROV is in GENERAL compliance with MOST of the Secretary of State's 41 touch-screen electronic voting system re-approval conditions based upon the Audit Team's (sic) observations. However, 8 conditions were incomplete and require further review by the ROV and Secretary of State."

When I take a trip of 100 miles and I obey the speed limit for 80 of those miles, I am in "GENERAL compliance with MOST of the speed limit laws". So I guess I'm doing a pretty good job. No need to cite me for doing 120 for 10 miles and then slowing down to 95 for the other 10 miles. In GENERAL I was in compliance with MOST of the laws.

Here's an especially great non-sequiter. Both statements on Page 5. "The ROV's primary current tamper controls have a number of weaknesses that need to be improved, primarily involving the lack of accountability logs to track all equipment and election materials during the chain of custody process that arrive with a broken seal or some other irregularity."

Incredibly, the report also includes this statement, "No evidence of tampering, misconduct or fraud upon the part of ROV staff or volunteer poll workers was found..." And how would one find such evidence when they admit there is a "lack of accountability logs to track all equipment and election materials..."? And "the adequacy of the procedures cannot be determined without a forensic audit".

The BB&K report uncovered a number of issues that the local Election Integrity group, SAVE R VOTE has been reporting on for six elections as seen at www.savervote.com. But the BB&K report failed to dig into any forensic reviews, did no in-depth look at the computer operations where manipulation of votes is most likely to take place, and refused to interview a whistleblower who was willing to come forward and provide inside information about improprieties in the ROV office.

Lastly, recommendations from an audit firm that BB&K subcontracted with with on how to make certain the Ballot Reconciliation spreadsheet provided full information (insuring the ballots actually reconciled!) were omitted from the report.

So the Board of Supervisors got what they wanted -a weighty report (500 pages or more) that repeatedly stated "No evidence of tampering, misconduct or fraud..." was found, when the techniques and processes needed to uncover such evidence were not employed! And it only cost taxpayers $315,000, or $150,000 more than the original contract because "SAVE R VOTE" had so many questions that extra time above what had been estimated had to be expended.

Yes indeed, pointed questions and suggestions of what to look for and how to expose it cost an extra 1,000 hours if you figure an average hourly cost of $150. Total hours billed by BB&K was 1,429. So one could conclude that the report would only have taken 429 hours to do had it not be for those pesky SAVE R VOTE folks asking so many questions.

Will anything like what has been exposed in KY be exposed elsewhere? Not if there are no serious efforts to AUDIT the operations and hold officials accountable for violations of laws, regulations and procedures. So far in Riverside, the Board and the ROV continue to brag about what a “flawless”, AKA “perfect” system they have. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Hillbilly heroin? Isn't that like saying black crack? More ppl in NY are on more drugs than all of appalachia combined. Also google to see what states have the highest inbreeding rate! It is not Ky or Wv. Racist city nimrods.